Tinnie Dell Pettway interview

1
Inter view with Tinnie Dell Pettway
Date of Interview; September 25 , 1980; Gee ' s Bend, Alabama
Interviewer: Kathryn Tucker Windham
Transcriber : Edna O. Meek
Begin Side 1 , Tape 1
T. D. Pettway: We were talking about the war . if As I Bay, I
don ' t remember when it started, but I do remem­ber
one night we hear d this screaming and
yell ing and all, and we went out to the front
and we could hear people saying the war had
ceased , the war had ceased . And everybody got
together and 8 lot of us met over to my grand­father's
house, which was Rev . Roman Pettway at
that time. Everybody got sticks and buckets.
That ' s all we had to beat. We didn't have any
drums. We got pans, pots, and pans and sticks
and they just marched to the schoolhouse , every
body beating drums and yelli ng. The old people
were thanking God and all that kind of stuff,
saying that ' s the day thei r children gain be
coming home . And they marched on that school
porch so much that there's a sink in that school
porch right now , that they put on it as a res ult
of that war cea sing . Cause everybody got on that
old school building that 's out there now and they
just marched . Even they marched till some of
the peopl es fainted . I remember distinctly a
lady named Del ia Pettway fainted that night.
And then gradual ly peoples' boys started coming
home . I remember good when my uncle came home.
Monroe . And my Mother was out, and we had an
aunt living wi th us , named Tempie . She came home
and said "Tempie, you know , I saw somebody go
runnin out there and my Pa", that what she called
her father-in-law . lIand it looked just like Monroe.
I don't know , but it sure looked like him." So
Aunt Tempie , naturally, she had reared those
kids , because the i r Mother died when they was
young; so she brought them up. And she said "I
don ' t know . /I So she went out on the porch and
then she hear d them over there talking, and she
got out and started over there , and before she
got there , Lawd , she was screaming . She was so
glad tha t they had made it back home safe. And
another one of the brothers came . He moved on
to Mobile , but Monroe stayed . He ana Roman stayed
here . After a while, they opened the store and
Roman ended up in the store and Monroe the farm .
And that ' s about what I remember about the war.
I think out of all the peopl e that come out aI'
here , we lost only one person that I know of in
this area .
KTW: I s that Ivory Wilson?
T. D. Pettway: No, tha t was Margaret ' s uncle. Margaret Ann. He
died . And he was the on l y one that I can remem­ber
missing in action f r om this area . Out of
* World War II
all the people. And they said the prayers that
they said over t her e brought them back . I re ­member
my Grandfather used to always talk about
2
T. D. Pettway: his boys. He said he bad three in there, and
how he would worry. My Mother, she waB the
consolator . She said she had had this dream;
said, you know, where she had seen them all come
back, but one of them didn ' t stay. And it
worked out so distinctly. Roman and Monroe
came and they stayed, and my Uncle Chester
moved on to Mobile.
But she told us, IINow, don 't you worry , cause
they're gonna sho come back, cause I dreamed it,
I seen it. I saw them all come back, but Chester
didn 1 t stay. He left. II And that 1 s just the way
it worked out. We talk about that often .
KTW: Did she have other visions like that?
T. D. Pettway : Well, you know, right now she have visions . She
always have visions, though. Like, you know,
these people, these two young people die recently,
She said that •••••• and my Father reminded me just
the other day •••• "Miss J oseph 's a dreamer ."
KTW: Miss Joseph, huh?
T. D. Pettway: Miss Joseph, right. She keep dreamin. I said I
hope she don't keep dreamin till she dream nothin
bout me. But if anything ever happens, you can ••••
just a few weeks or so before that, she done
dreamed it . She like a forecaster, she can drea,
those things, and something happens . Like, she
ever see herself dealin with people that been
dead; sometime, most times, it meant somebody
was gonna go . She say she see herself in those
old place where she used to live, she expect to
hear that somebody done died. Usually that
happens . A few weeks ago , she say IlItm gwin
step in the old pasture land tonight ." I say,
"Oh, God, there go somebody."
KTW: Now, does she l ive at your house?
T. D. Pettway : Yeah . My Mother. And she so shy, she don ' t want
to take picture, she don ' t want to t alk. Well,
she shy like that. She don ' t like •••• it better
if she knows you. If she know you ' re listenin
KTW,
at what she saying, she wontt open up for nothin .
And you said something about y 'al1 eating that
night , when the war was over.
T. D. Pettway : No, we didn ' t eat. All we did was march. Right.
And I don't know how late we stayed. Singing
and praying . And the old people thanking God.
But I was just glad to be out. I was beatin my
bucket . I was just glad to be out there with em.
It didn't make no difference how long I stayed
out. They was doing all thiS, thank ing God and
all the singing , and I can remember there was
one man . He had about three or four sons in it ,
too, and that man, he just carried on something,
you know. He was just so grateful the war had
ceased and his boys was comin home . He lived
right next door to us at that time. Gues s
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T. D. Pettway: that ' s all I can remember. I can remember my
uncles comin home on furlough. My brother has
8 little cap right now that he brought; and I
was lookin at it just Monday, that he brought
in from Japan. And i t 's a little old baby cap
with all these feet prints allover it. My
Mother kept it and still got it. I reckon it
about thirty something years old .
KTW. So be was in Japan. Where did your Daddy go?
T. D. Pettway: My Daddy didn't go . He was the oldest son. They
usually left the oldest son, and my Father was
the oldest son, so he was left to help with the
plantin .
KTW: The farm?
T. D. Pettway: The farm and everything .
KTW: Well, where did Roman go?
T. D. Pettway : I just don ' t remember where Roman went. Roman
was out in combat like . He was cookin. Roman
was a sailor. He wore 8 blue uniform, and that
was a sailor , wasn't it? And a white cap.
KTW. And he cooked?
T. D. Pettway : Yeah, he cooked. He did . But Monroe, he was
actually in combat . He was a Captain out there.
No , he wasn't. He was a sergeant . That what he
was. He had , like he had his group of boys.
KTW.
T. D. Pettway .
KTW.
T. D. Pettway:
KTW.
T. D. Pettway .
He was a s ergeant. He went to England. Cause
I know he talked about England and all. How
they used to get a pack of Cigarettes and sell
it; how those people ' d buy cigarettes from em .
And all the girls and things they met over there.
And how they, you know , like we expect them to
be so afraid . He ' d tell about how you really
not that afraid. Peoples be runnin, and some­times
they just run right up to you and people
shoot in all around you, and he hadn 't got time
to be afraid.
But he said till after it 's over, then you think
about al l your buddies done got •••• they gone, and
how lucky you were to be alive.
Tinnie Dell, how long were you away from down here
at Gee 's Bend?
Seven or eight years, I guess.
All of it in Bridgeport?
I was in Mobile. I stayed in Mobile ffor two years.
Then I left there and went to Bridgeport .
And then you 've been back down here about bow long?
About eleven years. I came back in ' 74. I think
it waB '74. I came back just when they opened
the nutrition place.
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KTW: Have things changed while you were gone?
T. D. Pettway: Down here? You mean the people down here?
KTW:
I guess some changes have been made. I think
things have changed more since I got back than
they had before I left. I mean when I first
came back. But the people had started stepping
out, you know, doing some things . Cause I was
up there when the voting thing first started,
and at least they had started down here, cause
I came here during the time and I went over there
and registered, just because this was our first
chance to register. Although it never did go
through. When I moved back down here, I bad to
register. I didn ' t get no results for that regis ­tration;
I don ' t know what happened. Nothing
happened. I registered , and I don't know what
they did with it. I didn't know if I became a
voter or what. I know I didn ' t because when I
came back for good , I had to go back over there
and register.
The first time I registered, I went to the new
courthouse , and they had a little room there for
us to register in . And I was sittin there fillin
out the form, and finally a shadow came over and
I looked and there was two men standing there
staring at me . And I was sittin in there by my������������self,
and there was only one way out and they was
in that way. So I just sat there and looked at
them, and they just passed on out the door . I
wondered what was they think in . Another thing , I
was gain to ask them why they was lookin at me ,
but then they turned and got out the door .
This doesn't sound like the first day they regis­tered,
though .
T. D. Pettway: No . it wasn ' t the first day. There was a lot of
persons there who had gone on and the same thing
had happened. I don't know if those papers were
burned up , but they weren ' t gettin through . That
was when they first said we could register. At
first they would find some excuses why we couldn't
register . We had to have all these different
qualifications , and all that kind of stuff.
KTWs Be able to interpret the Constitution?
T. D. Pettway : That ' s right . Ex.ctly.
on at that time. When I
to do none of that.
That was what
came back, we
was going
didn ' t have
KTWs Well , Tinnie Dell, how many folks are voting over
here now? Is the voter turnout pretty high, or
is it j ust about thirty percent , like it is most
places?
T. D. Pettway : Oh , no . We vote ninety percent all the time . You
don't r emember the last election, do you? We
voted ninety something percent. Just about every­body
voted . Just about everybody .
KTW: Good .
5
T. D. Pettway: Well, you know, Boykin was the first people who
really stepped out in this area, and in Wilcox
and. all this area. The peoples from over here
were the first ones went over there and got tied
up in that tear gas in Camden, and all that stuff.
Then, after awhile, the other people started
camin, after they found out they wasn't gain to
get killed. But we really get together when it's
votin time. That's one of the times we really
get together. We decide before election who we
gain vote for, and we do it.
KTW: Where is the polling place here?
T. D. Pettway: At the old school building.
KTW: Just have one box?
T. D. Pettway: I don't know. Ob, you mean just one place to vote?
KTW:
T. D. Pettway:
KTW:
T. D. Pettway:
KTW.
T. D. Pettway:
Right. They have a pretty good turnout early in
the mornin, and througb the day it's just people
that are not workin, and in the afternoon the people
who be goin to work come in.
I really didn't know anything about a lot of thos e
people, because you can't just take a person and
follow him and tell what kind of person he goin be
all the time. Although lots of times, people base
their facts on what they'll say. And a lot of times
that helps.
Well, there are certain family traits that run
through a family.
That's right.
Is that whey they say about you, Tinnie Dell?
That's right. She stingy Tenner.
You're hard working, though. And they spell that how?
T-e-n-n-e-r. That's what we was. I always say
I wish we'd go back and change that, and everybody
say everything we own now is in Pettway name, and
if we go back we might not ever get it straightened
out, but I would love to know.
KTW; But you need to know for your own satisfaction.
Even if you didn't do anything about it, you just
need to know. Cause your descendants need to
know. They're growing up and they think they've
always been Pettways.
T. D. Pettway: That 's right . My Mother was a Rivers, and her
folks all turned out to be Pettways. They were
bought, too.
KTW: Did they come from South Carolina?
T. D. Pettway: I don't know. And she doesn't know where they
came from.
KTW: Somebody was talking not long ago about the fact
KTW:
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that the ones that came from South Carolina
knew how to grow rice . Have you ever seen rice
growing down here?
T. D. Pettway: Well, my Mother say they used to grow rice down
here . Now , I didn ' t see it, but they say they
used to grow rice right down here. The best
rice you have ever eaten. I think her father
used to plant it . They had watery places that
they plowed . I don ' t know if rice would even
come up _ Well, what kind of rice you get to come
up. I'm sur e it's not China Doll.
KTW: But I'm really interested in that. Somebody, a
long time ago, showed me an aerial map, and it
looked like terraces on ther e . Somebody looked
at it and said, "That I s the kind of terraces
they gro\oi rice on in Japan". And I said •• • • ••
Well , you know I never have been to Japan and
didn't know anything about growing rice. And
then, not long ago, I was over at the University
of Alabama , reading some old letters from Mr.
VandeGraaff , who bought this place in 1900 from
the Pettways. And one of those letters said,
IIThere ' s something unusual that they do at Gee's
Bend . They grow rice, and it's the only place
am Al abama that grows rice. 1I And then , you know
that carried on .
T. D. Pettway: I remember hearing them talk about Mr. VanderGraff.
How every fourth of July held let them kill these
bulls and have these big celebrations, and how
much meat they had every four th of July . They ' re
steers, I guess, or whatever they got to kill.
I'm sure it wasn't bulls. Cows, I should say .
They kill those big cows.
KTW: I think there were sort of wild cows, too. Have
you ever heard them talk about how ~ild those
cows were?
T. D. Pettway: That ' s right. I remember my Grandfather had oxen
that he used to pl ow. Girl, I u sed to be scared
of those things. They had the biggest horns,
and they was the slowest things y ou ever saw.
KTW: Is this Romam you're talking about?
T. D. Pettway: Right. It was Roman.
em oxen. They used to
He had two
plow em.
oxen. He called
KTW: I think the government brought those down here.
T. D. Pettway: I guess so. I don't know how those things got
down here. I just vaguely remember them . I don ' t
guess no deers were down here at that time . I
don ' t know. I think they came later. And now,
you know we got a deer out yonder got a baby deer.
KTW: Where?
T. D. Pettway : There at
bottle.
the house . And
A baby bottle .
now he ' s nur sing a
He's taking SMA right
KTW: What did you name him, Tinnie?
now .
T. D. Pettway:
KTW:
Well, we
peanuts,
Peanuts.
her.
was in the peanut patch, pullin up
when we saw him, so we named him
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So that's what we called him. It's a
Well, have you finished pulling all the peanuts?
T. D. Pettway: Yeah. They didn't do well this year. Got so
dry the bushes didn't have anything on them.
KTW: Well, what about sugar cane? Are you going to
have any?
T. D. Pettway: There one or two stalks down in these, but it's
dried up, just about.
KTWI I wanted to get some pictures of the syrup mill.
Do you think there's going to be enough to make
any syrup with?
T. D. Pettway: I believe somebody goin make some, cause I saw
Roger cuttin down some millet Saturday, so some­time
he goin make it, I'm pretty sure. But I
don't know when.
KTWI Well, what about hogs? You got any you going to
kill this winter?
T. D. Pettway: I don't know. I have one hog that I was goin
kill. And just last night, this lady's boar
hog, he got out, broke into there and broke my
female hog out. And I imagine what probably
happened, so I probably won't get to kill my
hog. My hog was a virgin, and I meant to keep
her that way. I expect I'm goin to have some
pigs, some unwanted pigs. Because he broke her
out.
KTW, Tinnie Dell, do you remember killing pigs when
you were little?
T. D. Pettway: Oh, yes. I remember when my father used to
kill em, hang em all up and wash em out, scrape
all the hair off em. I'll never forget that,
cause my uncle was good to grab us up and sit
us on a skinned hog.
KTW: Never did stuff you down inside of one, did he?
T. D. Pettway: No'rn. But he skin em and wash em off, and before
you know one thing, he got you sittin on top of
KTW.
a skint hog, you know. I had the devilish uncle
you ever seen in all your life. Monroe.
Oh, is that the one?
T. D. Pettway: That's the one. Right. He always did things
like that. Yeah, we did that all our lives.
KTW,
From the time I can remember till I was big
enough to help until I left. Every year we still
kill hogs. One or two.
I want to ge~ Borne pictures of that, too.
Weather's got to get cold before you do that.
T. D. Pett~ay : Oh, yeah . Some people do i t before Christmas ,
some even ~ait till after Christmas . Gotta
get real cold.
KTW, Did you ever play with the bladder ?
T. D. Pett~ay : Oh, yes. That ~as the only thing we wanted .
KTW,
Take it and pump it up and let it fly. My
Mother, she got smart. She started painting it.
After ~e hung it up in the house, painted . We'd
blow it up with a cane, a fishing cane, stick
it in that hole to blow it up. And then some­body
tie it .
Now, I ' ve never Been that done, hung up in the
house .
T. D. Pettway: Yeah, we keep on doing it, and it keep stretching
bigger and bigger, and you blow em as tight as
you can get em, and then tie it . Cut all the
excess meat off and dry it, and then she paint
it .
KTW, They used to play football with those things, the
bladders .
T. D. Pettway: Well, we never did that. See, I didn 't know
anything about football .
KTW: They were tough, weren't they?
T. D. Pettway: They were. If you try to tear em up, you wouldn't.
KTW,
I always hated that hog killing time worse than
anything i n the world. In the first pl ace, it
made me sick to my stomach. I never could stand
it, and then the smell of thoBe cracklins cookin
was another thing that made me sick . I coul dn ' t
stand it . I could not stand that greasy cracklin
smell.
Did your Father shoot the hog or did he hit him
in the head?
T. D. Pettway: Sometimes he used to hit him. Depend on how big
he is. Most of the time, my Father ' s shoot the
hog . But on the second Sunday, our big church
day , they used to put up a pig, and they wasn't
a big hog; and they'd take a hammer and hit him
in the head , rather than shoot him . But it
looked l ike murder to hit him in the head, but
sometime they did hit em in the head. And the
brains, my Father loved hog brains .
KTW, We were talking about that big second Sunday at
the church. They don't do that any more , do they?
T. D. Pettway: You mean , like we'd cook. Oh, yes. We cook .
Right . Maybe now we cook more than we used to.
KTW : Got mor e now, haven't you?
T. D. Pettway: Right. Everybody. The church cook a8 a group,
9S a whole. And then people cook at home and
bring there. We really cook . They usually serve
it after church. And there's always plenty of
9
T. D. Pettway: food there . And Sunday, after baptizing. Any
time, l ike after we have anniversaries, the
church is invited. And we al ways have dinner .
Usually , if they invite a church, we would serve,
and we would have people coming from Mobile or
someplace , and they want to eat right sway. So
we would serve them and then go into our program ;
and when they are finished, they are ready to
KTW,
go home.
Well , did they get the air conditioning in the
church?
T. D. Pettway: Oh , yes . It was cold , I'm telling you. One of
the ladies said ehe wes so cool, it was just
like a bowl of ice cream. And it was too cold
for everybody that first Sunday. They had it in
the seventies and we was so used to it gettlng
8 hundred , that that seventy was absolutely cold.
KTW, I1t. was 120 tha t baptizing day I I don ' t think I've
ever been any hotter sitting down . But it was
8 beautiful service.
T. D. Pettway : Oh, yes. I always love that baptizing picture.
KTW,
I wasn ' t at the River Jordan , you know , but it
bring memories to mind and makes you think that
must have been, what it looked like .
(End Side 1, Begin Side 2)
Tinnie Dell, had all those who were baptized
had visions?
T. D. Pettway: Yes, they all had visions, I reckon. They said
they had . And they got up and told em . That's
the only way they can join. Well , I don't know.
If someone just went in there and 88Y, ItI want
to join the church" , they wouldn It turn em down,
no. But, traditionally, you have 8 vision if
you join the church, everywhere in this ares .
That is the tradition of this ares . You pray to
get religion and you come back and you tell it.
But now, if you walked in there and say , "I want
to join the church ", you ' ll join and you ' l l
be just as much a member as anybody else . I
think we are learning now . Traditionally , if
you didn ' t have viSions, you didn ' t have
religion . What we called religion, you wasn ' t
a Christian. But now , I think, peoples are
becoming much more educated . I guess I can say
that. They are learning that you don ' t • •• • •
I myself , I don ' t think it takes all that . You
know , just reading the Bible , the r e are some
indications that peopl e just turn, they just
say I'm gain do this way and I'm goin be a
Christian, and people down here are even learning
to not judge people so much. But at first, you
were judged according to the vision you saw.
And you came up there with a little short vision,
well, in the minds of the people you just done
doomed yourself to you know where , because you
didn't tell nothin . But I think lot of people
changin their view on that now.
KTW: Well, you bad a vision wben you joined the church?
10
T. D. Pettway: Yeah, I bad to or I never would have gotten in
there. I stayed out there just about three
months before I joined the church . I couldn ' t
believe nothin .
KTW, How old were you, Tinnie Dell? In your early
teens?
T. D. Pettway: No , I had graduated from high school and all.
That ' s right . I was about nineteen , I guess.
KTW: But you were not ready to believe right then,
were you?
T. D. Pettway : No , cause, really , to tell you the truth, I hadn't
seen nothin to believe in . And I guess • • • l don't
know • • • ! don ' t know what it was about me . The
whole thing waB , like my family, they say you
KTW:
got to give up ever ything; gatta forget about
eve r ything . And in my family ther e was so much
always to think about , I j ust couldn ' t put down
all that stuff. I kept my mind on first one thing
and then another . That what took me BO long .
I couldn ' t stop thinking about my people, or
what ' s going on around me, and, 80, finally, I
did .
After I see I wasn't goin to see no kind of vision ,
so finally I had to , you know, do like everybody
else . I got tired out there, being quiet by
myself . Cause when you're doing it, you don't
mix with the people . You don ' t come out. It ' s
just you and God , or you and the devil, or whoever
it is that ' s out there , and you come in and you
get your food , and you go back to yourself, and
you try to lay down all the things of the world .
You fill your mind with every thin except what you
tryin to do, and that is to get yourself in
con t act with God . That exactly what you tryin
to do. And then you gatta do that and you ' ll know
it by the things that you ask Him to show you,
and you see them. That ' s the only way you know
it has happened . But it ' s not easy to do . But
it can be done .
Well, then, there's no doubt in your mind when
you ' ve had one of these visions, is it?
T. D. Pettway: No . Doubt come around , but you know you've had
a vision, and then you stop your mind and say
maybe you dream it. Anyway, that what you see .
And then, you know, I think the most convincing
part about the whole thing is when you can feel
God's force or power, which we call the Holy
Spirit . And this is when you can't control
yourself , when the tears come ••••• and you know,
like they say, your feet get light , and big as
I was, I felt like my feet re ally got light .
I felt like r unning . And yet , now , this only
happens for a while. This doesn' t stay with you
for long. And then as soon as it goes , doubts
start coming baCk in , and you say , Lord , you ain' t
got nothin , you j ust been tellin a tale . And
then you stop , and what I did, I said , "How come
I felt like this . I never felt like that before . II
I know what I got now . But it ' s real har d . All
11
T. D. Pettway : down through your life, you' re goin to have
doubts. Certain things happen and you desire
things , and it come about, that make you realize
that there really is a God, and He really will
do things that you want and need.
KTW: Tinnie
first?
Dell, who did you tell your V1S10n to
To your Mother , or somebody?
T. D. Pettway: No, some people do make their kids ••••• they call
it catechizing em. They make them tell them
what ••••• they used to do that all the time. My
Mother didn ' t ask me nothin.
KTW: You just told her you had the vision?
T. D. Pettway: Right, I told her.
KTW: And sbe accepted that, didn't she?
T. D. Pettway: And then we had to tell it in the church. But
KTW:
I guess I h ad been there 80 long that I guess
she didn't care if I didn't have no vision, just
88 long as I ••••• No , I just said that . She was
expecting me to have one, go on or do something;
feel religion or let it all alone, one. I bad
been so long till it worried her .
And my sister, she prayed for a whole year. She
wasn't prayin, but she was seeking for a whole
year. She didn't go no place , she just stayed
home; she stayed -out in the back in her room,
locked up to herself. Wasn 't doing a thing but
sittin there. I know she couldn't have been
prayin; no God could listen to her that long.
And at this time, you don't look pretty. You
don't try to look pretty. You can be clean and
take a bathj like that, but nothin else.
Don't dress up. But was your vision anything like
your sister's vision?
T. D. Pettway: No, I don't think so. I wasn't at church when
my sister told her vision. I don't think I was
down here then. Matter of fact, I wasn't at
church when any of them told their vision. I
must have left •••• No, I didn't hear any of them
tell theirs. Some of them got religion before
I did, some of em was after I did. I didn 't
go to church to hear none of em . I don't know
how I missed it. I remember bein at the baptizing,
but I don't •••• I wasn't at the church when they
told their vision. I remember my Mother talkin
about it. But the whole thing of it is you
ask God one thing and He 'll show you things.
Never all the same way. Just all different ways.
You'll know what it is, and o~her people'll
know, but you ain't goin ever see the same thing
somebody else does. I guess He got as many
visions as He is faces.
KTW: Was yours dealing with animals in any way?
T. D. Pettway: No . We
things.
have , you know, like everybody they got
I'm not sure I know the name of it.
12
T. D. Pettway: I guess the name of, to give you an idea,
everybody ask God t o let them see themselves
KTW:
die and rise. That t he reason it t ook me so
long. I didn't know the meaning of dying
and rising. And I yet not sure I know the
reason of it. And t he most times that would
come in the form of some animal or some person
that you actually dream that they die. And you
are ready to funeralize em and you funeralize
em, snd people cryin over em, and the next thing
you know, they up and around. Some people see
chickens, snakes, whatever.
Mules. I heard somebody tell about a mule.
T. D. Pettway: Right. Lot of times, you don't have to ask for
a vision. If you just pray , you're gonna see
something. There will come a vision. But, then,
lot of people like to ask. I guess that's
more proof than just dreamin some thin.
KTW: Tinnie Dell, back to that hog killing. Margaret
used an expression with me, and I'm not sure what
it means. She said they made toms-toms. What
is that?
T. D. Pettway: Oh, well, I don't know really what the name is
KTW:
for that piece of meat. But it was just when you
kill a hog, and like the fat back part, that is
that part; they just take and they cut just the
skin off and they leave the fat there; and they
take that skin and they just cut them blocks just
about the size like that; about a four by four,
or a two by four, or something like that. And
they just put a whole lot of red pepper on there.
Season it with salt and a whole lot of red pepper.
Not black pepper. Then they put it into the
hog's chitlins, and they hang it up in the smoke­house
and let it dry, cure; and then it took it
and cook greens with it. It really make it good.
It's the best piece of skin you ever tasted.
Well, I reckon it did, but it'll burn you up,
won't it?
T. D. Pettway: Kinds like Italian stuff.
KTW: I don't know why I never have heard of that. Is
tom- tom right?
T. D. Pettway: Well, I call it tom thumb. So I don't know what
it is. That'w what I call it, tom thumb. I
don't really know what it is. I never really
stopped to find out what the real name is. That's
just what they call it, and that's all I call it.
KTW: You got any hanging up in your smokehouse?
T. D. Pettway: No. We didn't make any. Usually my Mother make
it because she like to keep em; because if she
cook peas she put em on there. She has to cook
them first, because it takes a while for them to
cook.
KTW: Kind of hard?
13
T. D. Pettway: Right . They have to cook a while , and then when
they start to get done, then she can put her peas
in there so they won ' t cook up .
KTW: Reckon anybody fs got any? I got to have some
greens cooked with them .
T. D. Pettway: I don ' t bel ieve nobody down here got none. I
doubt it now. I doubt if anybody got any . They
use, not the red pepper from the store , but the
red pepper out of the ga r den. All them pieces
of pepper is in ther e . Hot? My goodness! But
once you cook em in your peas and greens, that
kinde weaken that pepper . But the meat , I l ike
it .
KTW: Talking to a man in Auburn last week , asking
about Martha Jane Pettway . Julian Brown .
T. D. Pettway: Julian Brown . I heard of him .
KTW: He was the District Supervisor for all these
houses. He was asking about people . He was
asking about Little Pettway and his wife . I
told him his wife was still living .
T. D. Pettway : You ' d be surpr ised how many people know of him
(Little Pettway).
KTW:
T. D. Pettway :
Well, he knew him well . He said he used to
come down here with some plan , take Little Pett­way
off and talk to him about it ; that if Little
didn 't think it was a good idea, he ' d discard
it, cause it wasn ' t going over down here . Said
anything that happened here , Little had to say
it was all right .
That was it .
this area at
He did . He was the speaker
that time .
for
KTW: Talked about his native intelligence . If he
had been highly educated, there ' s no telling
what he could have done . Just immediately would
catch on to anything that was expl ained. He said
he ca r ed about these folks down here he lived
with.
T. D. Pettway : That was him , now.
KTW: You don ' t r emember him , do you?
T. D. Pettway ; Yeah , sur e I do . He was the secr etary •••• the
Sunday School superintendent when he was here ,
from the time I can remember him , and then he
became a Deacon later on . Yes , I remember him
well , I t wasn ' t too long ago he died . He didn ' t
die too long ago .
KTW : Was he a small man?
T. D. Pettway : He was small , but tall .
KTW: I think I have a picture of him , made wit h the
deacons of the church .
14
T. D. Pettway: Ri ght . You probably have . But he was a real
tall man.
KTW: And he lived to a pretty good old age, then,
didn I the?
T. D. Pettway : Yeah . He must have been in his middle seventies .
His wife is hanging on around here . She done
hit eighty something now.
KTW: And enjoying life.
T. D. Pettway: I 'm telling you. She sure is . Running off the
porch . Every time you go there , she come runnin
off the porch . I can ' t even run off no porch .
KTW: If they don ' t put some railings on some of these
porches , I 'm going to falloff some of these
porches . Is there a house down here that I s got
a railing?
T. D. Pettway : I doubt it.
(There is a background voice , telling of someone
who has railings at her bouse . Words are not
clear enough to understand.)
T. D. Pettway : Yeah , but they were made special because she was
crippled like. Otherwise ••••• she had ar thritis.
Otherwise , nobody use railings . They don ' t need
em. They so accustomed to not havin em till ••••
little kids and all . The little ones come to the
edge of the porch and bump right down there ,
KTW:
T. D. Pettway :
KTW:
and come bump, bump , bump down off there . I know
I go to pick those little kids up and they come
right down together. They so dirty behind , you
got to pick em up and they need changing .
Yes , but it bothers me to see some of the old
ones coming down those steps . I 'm so scared
they 're going to fall, but they never have , have
they?
No , they
she come
fall off
don ' t fall. I tell you, Miss Martha Jane ,
running down . I say , "Lady, you gain
those stepsll . But she never does .
And the steps are so worn and uneven .
T. D. Pettway : That ' s r i ght . And some of them are so narrow ,
you know .
KTW: My big feet don ' t fit on them .
T. D. Pettway: Well , I have to go up there walk in crossways . But
if they put side rail s up there , I doubt if they
would use em . Because they just not accustomed
to side rails . Things just wasn ' t made that
convenient for us . We not used to all that con­venience
. And because of that, probably we
don ' t even need it .
KTW: Got better balance , haven ' t you?
T. D. Pettway: A lot of times , you know, it does help you.
15
KTW: You do get kind of spoiled s ometime, don ' t you?
T. D. Pettway : That ' s t r ue. By having everything at your fin ger­tips
and everything . People down here haven ' t
known that glor y .
KTW: They 're better off right now, I guess, than
they ' ve ever been .
T. D. Pettway : I know they a r e . To tell you the t r uth , people
waste up down her e mor e now than they used to
have . Even t her e ar e stil l b i g pr obl ems with
un empl oyment down here . As a whole , I mean , the
peopl e a r e better off than they ' ve ever been .
Mor e peopl e a r e going to school ; and more people
ar e getting jobs . Mor e people are going to trade
school, and more par ents even are gettin out
KTW:
and gettin jobs. That makes it better .
Seeing a l ittle bit of t he outside world , too ,
ar en ' t they?
T. D. Pettway : That ' s right .
(End Side 2 , Tape 1)

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Holding.Institution

Birmingham Public Library (Alabama)

Full Text

1
Inter view with Tinnie Dell Pettway
Date of Interview; September 25 , 1980; Gee ' s Bend, Alabama
Interviewer: Kathryn Tucker Windham
Transcriber : Edna O. Meek
Begin Side 1 , Tape 1
T. D. Pettway: We were talking about the war . if As I Bay, I
don ' t remember when it started, but I do remem­ber
one night we hear d this screaming and
yell ing and all, and we went out to the front
and we could hear people saying the war had
ceased , the war had ceased . And everybody got
together and 8 lot of us met over to my grand­father's
house, which was Rev . Roman Pettway at
that time. Everybody got sticks and buckets.
That ' s all we had to beat. We didn't have any
drums. We got pans, pots, and pans and sticks
and they just marched to the schoolhouse , every
body beating drums and yelli ng. The old people
were thanking God and all that kind of stuff,
saying that ' s the day thei r children gain be
coming home . And they marched on that school
porch so much that there's a sink in that school
porch right now , that they put on it as a res ult
of that war cea sing . Cause everybody got on that
old school building that 's out there now and they
just marched . Even they marched till some of
the peopl es fainted . I remember distinctly a
lady named Del ia Pettway fainted that night.
And then gradual ly peoples' boys started coming
home . I remember good when my uncle came home.
Monroe . And my Mother was out, and we had an
aunt living wi th us , named Tempie . She came home
and said "Tempie, you know , I saw somebody go
runnin out there and my Pa", that what she called
her father-in-law . lIand it looked just like Monroe.
I don't know , but it sure looked like him." So
Aunt Tempie , naturally, she had reared those
kids , because the i r Mother died when they was
young; so she brought them up. And she said "I
don ' t know . /I So she went out on the porch and
then she hear d them over there talking, and she
got out and started over there , and before she
got there , Lawd , she was screaming . She was so
glad tha t they had made it back home safe. And
another one of the brothers came . He moved on
to Mobile , but Monroe stayed . He ana Roman stayed
here . After a while, they opened the store and
Roman ended up in the store and Monroe the farm .
And that ' s about what I remember about the war.
I think out of all the peopl e that come out aI'
here , we lost only one person that I know of in
this area .
KTW: I s that Ivory Wilson?
T. D. Pettway: No, tha t was Margaret ' s uncle. Margaret Ann. He
died . And he was the on l y one that I can remem­ber
missing in action f r om this area . Out of
* World War II
all the people. And they said the prayers that
they said over t her e brought them back . I re ­member
my Grandfather used to always talk about
2
T. D. Pettway: his boys. He said he bad three in there, and
how he would worry. My Mother, she waB the
consolator . She said she had had this dream;
said, you know, where she had seen them all come
back, but one of them didn ' t stay. And it
worked out so distinctly. Roman and Monroe
came and they stayed, and my Uncle Chester
moved on to Mobile.
But she told us, IINow, don 't you worry , cause
they're gonna sho come back, cause I dreamed it,
I seen it. I saw them all come back, but Chester
didn 1 t stay. He left. II And that 1 s just the way
it worked out. We talk about that often .
KTW: Did she have other visions like that?
T. D. Pettway : Well, you know, right now she have visions . She
always have visions, though. Like, you know,
these people, these two young people die recently,
She said that •••••• and my Father reminded me just
the other day •••• "Miss J oseph 's a dreamer ."
KTW: Miss Joseph, huh?
T. D. Pettway: Miss Joseph, right. She keep dreamin. I said I
hope she don't keep dreamin till she dream nothin
bout me. But if anything ever happens, you can ••••
just a few weeks or so before that, she done
dreamed it . She like a forecaster, she can drea,
those things, and something happens . Like, she
ever see herself dealin with people that been
dead; sometime, most times, it meant somebody
was gonna go . She say she see herself in those
old place where she used to live, she expect to
hear that somebody done died. Usually that
happens . A few weeks ago , she say IlItm gwin
step in the old pasture land tonight ." I say,
"Oh, God, there go somebody."
KTW: Now, does she l ive at your house?
T. D. Pettway : Yeah . My Mother. And she so shy, she don ' t want
to take picture, she don ' t want to t alk. Well,
she shy like that. She don ' t like •••• it better
if she knows you. If she know you ' re listenin
KTW,
at what she saying, she wontt open up for nothin .
And you said something about y 'al1 eating that
night , when the war was over.
T. D. Pettway : No, we didn ' t eat. All we did was march. Right.
And I don't know how late we stayed. Singing
and praying . And the old people thanking God.
But I was just glad to be out. I was beatin my
bucket . I was just glad to be out there with em.
It didn't make no difference how long I stayed
out. They was doing all thiS, thank ing God and
all the singing , and I can remember there was
one man . He had about three or four sons in it ,
too, and that man, he just carried on something,
you know. He was just so grateful the war had
ceased and his boys was comin home . He lived
right next door to us at that time. Gues s
3
T. D. Pettway: that ' s all I can remember. I can remember my
uncles comin home on furlough. My brother has
8 little cap right now that he brought; and I
was lookin at it just Monday, that he brought
in from Japan. And i t 's a little old baby cap
with all these feet prints allover it. My
Mother kept it and still got it. I reckon it
about thirty something years old .
KTW. So be was in Japan. Where did your Daddy go?
T. D. Pettway: My Daddy didn't go . He was the oldest son. They
usually left the oldest son, and my Father was
the oldest son, so he was left to help with the
plantin .
KTW: The farm?
T. D. Pettway: The farm and everything .
KTW: Well, where did Roman go?
T. D. Pettway : I just don ' t remember where Roman went. Roman
was out in combat like . He was cookin. Roman
was a sailor. He wore 8 blue uniform, and that
was a sailor , wasn't it? And a white cap.
KTW. And he cooked?
T. D. Pettway : Yeah, he cooked. He did . But Monroe, he was
actually in combat . He was a Captain out there.
No , he wasn't. He was a sergeant . That what he
was. He had , like he had his group of boys.
KTW.
T. D. Pettway .
KTW.
T. D. Pettway:
KTW.
T. D. Pettway .
He was a s ergeant. He went to England. Cause
I know he talked about England and all. How
they used to get a pack of Cigarettes and sell
it; how those people ' d buy cigarettes from em .
And all the girls and things they met over there.
And how they, you know , like we expect them to
be so afraid . He ' d tell about how you really
not that afraid. Peoples be runnin, and some­times
they just run right up to you and people
shoot in all around you, and he hadn 't got time
to be afraid.
But he said till after it 's over, then you think
about al l your buddies done got •••• they gone, and
how lucky you were to be alive.
Tinnie Dell, how long were you away from down here
at Gee 's Bend?
Seven or eight years, I guess.
All of it in Bridgeport?
I was in Mobile. I stayed in Mobile ffor two years.
Then I left there and went to Bridgeport .
And then you 've been back down here about bow long?
About eleven years. I came back in ' 74. I think
it waB '74. I came back just when they opened
the nutrition place.
4
KTW: Have things changed while you were gone?
T. D. Pettway: Down here? You mean the people down here?
KTW:
I guess some changes have been made. I think
things have changed more since I got back than
they had before I left. I mean when I first
came back. But the people had started stepping
out, you know, doing some things . Cause I was
up there when the voting thing first started,
and at least they had started down here, cause
I came here during the time and I went over there
and registered, just because this was our first
chance to register. Although it never did go
through. When I moved back down here, I bad to
register. I didn ' t get no results for that regis ­tration;
I don ' t know what happened. Nothing
happened. I registered , and I don't know what
they did with it. I didn't know if I became a
voter or what. I know I didn ' t because when I
came back for good , I had to go back over there
and register.
The first time I registered, I went to the new
courthouse , and they had a little room there for
us to register in . And I was sittin there fillin
out the form, and finally a shadow came over and
I looked and there was two men standing there
staring at me . And I was sittin in there by my������������self,
and there was only one way out and they was
in that way. So I just sat there and looked at
them, and they just passed on out the door . I
wondered what was they think in . Another thing , I
was gain to ask them why they was lookin at me ,
but then they turned and got out the door .
This doesn't sound like the first day they regis­tered,
though .
T. D. Pettway: No . it wasn ' t the first day. There was a lot of
persons there who had gone on and the same thing
had happened. I don't know if those papers were
burned up , but they weren ' t gettin through . That
was when they first said we could register. At
first they would find some excuses why we couldn't
register . We had to have all these different
qualifications , and all that kind of stuff.
KTWs Be able to interpret the Constitution?
T. D. Pettway : That ' s right . Ex.ctly.
on at that time. When I
to do none of that.
That was what
came back, we
was going
didn ' t have
KTWs Well , Tinnie Dell, how many folks are voting over
here now? Is the voter turnout pretty high, or
is it j ust about thirty percent , like it is most
places?
T. D. Pettway : Oh , no . We vote ninety percent all the time . You
don't r emember the last election, do you? We
voted ninety something percent. Just about every­body
voted . Just about everybody .
KTW: Good .
5
T. D. Pettway: Well, you know, Boykin was the first people who
really stepped out in this area, and in Wilcox
and. all this area. The peoples from over here
were the first ones went over there and got tied
up in that tear gas in Camden, and all that stuff.
Then, after awhile, the other people started
camin, after they found out they wasn't gain to
get killed. But we really get together when it's
votin time. That's one of the times we really
get together. We decide before election who we
gain vote for, and we do it.
KTW: Where is the polling place here?
T. D. Pettway: At the old school building.
KTW: Just have one box?
T. D. Pettway: I don't know. Ob, you mean just one place to vote?
KTW:
T. D. Pettway:
KTW:
T. D. Pettway:
KTW.
T. D. Pettway:
Right. They have a pretty good turnout early in
the mornin, and througb the day it's just people
that are not workin, and in the afternoon the people
who be goin to work come in.
I really didn't know anything about a lot of thos e
people, because you can't just take a person and
follow him and tell what kind of person he goin be
all the time. Although lots of times, people base
their facts on what they'll say. And a lot of times
that helps.
Well, there are certain family traits that run
through a family.
That's right.
Is that whey they say about you, Tinnie Dell?
That's right. She stingy Tenner.
You're hard working, though. And they spell that how?
T-e-n-n-e-r. That's what we was. I always say
I wish we'd go back and change that, and everybody
say everything we own now is in Pettway name, and
if we go back we might not ever get it straightened
out, but I would love to know.
KTW; But you need to know for your own satisfaction.
Even if you didn't do anything about it, you just
need to know. Cause your descendants need to
know. They're growing up and they think they've
always been Pettways.
T. D. Pettway: That 's right . My Mother was a Rivers, and her
folks all turned out to be Pettways. They were
bought, too.
KTW: Did they come from South Carolina?
T. D. Pettway: I don't know. And she doesn't know where they
came from.
KTW: Somebody was talking not long ago about the fact
KTW:
6
that the ones that came from South Carolina
knew how to grow rice . Have you ever seen rice
growing down here?
T. D. Pettway: Well, my Mother say they used to grow rice down
here . Now , I didn ' t see it, but they say they
used to grow rice right down here. The best
rice you have ever eaten. I think her father
used to plant it . They had watery places that
they plowed . I don ' t know if rice would even
come up _ Well, what kind of rice you get to come
up. I'm sur e it's not China Doll.
KTW: But I'm really interested in that. Somebody, a
long time ago, showed me an aerial map, and it
looked like terraces on ther e . Somebody looked
at it and said, "That I s the kind of terraces
they gro\oi rice on in Japan". And I said •• • • ••
Well , you know I never have been to Japan and
didn't know anything about growing rice. And
then, not long ago, I was over at the University
of Alabama , reading some old letters from Mr.
VandeGraaff , who bought this place in 1900 from
the Pettways. And one of those letters said,
IIThere ' s something unusual that they do at Gee's
Bend . They grow rice, and it's the only place
am Al abama that grows rice. 1I And then , you know
that carried on .
T. D. Pettway: I remember hearing them talk about Mr. VanderGraff.
How every fourth of July held let them kill these
bulls and have these big celebrations, and how
much meat they had every four th of July . They ' re
steers, I guess, or whatever they got to kill.
I'm sure it wasn't bulls. Cows, I should say .
They kill those big cows.
KTW: I think there were sort of wild cows, too. Have
you ever heard them talk about how ~ild those
cows were?
T. D. Pettway: That ' s right. I remember my Grandfather had oxen
that he used to pl ow. Girl, I u sed to be scared
of those things. They had the biggest horns,
and they was the slowest things y ou ever saw.
KTW: Is this Romam you're talking about?
T. D. Pettway: Right. It was Roman.
em oxen. They used to
He had two
plow em.
oxen. He called
KTW: I think the government brought those down here.
T. D. Pettway: I guess so. I don't know how those things got
down here. I just vaguely remember them . I don ' t
guess no deers were down here at that time . I
don ' t know. I think they came later. And now,
you know we got a deer out yonder got a baby deer.
KTW: Where?
T. D. Pettway : There at
bottle.
the house . And
A baby bottle .
now he ' s nur sing a
He's taking SMA right
KTW: What did you name him, Tinnie?
now .
T. D. Pettway:
KTW:
Well, we
peanuts,
Peanuts.
her.
was in the peanut patch, pullin up
when we saw him, so we named him
7
So that's what we called him. It's a
Well, have you finished pulling all the peanuts?
T. D. Pettway: Yeah. They didn't do well this year. Got so
dry the bushes didn't have anything on them.
KTW: Well, what about sugar cane? Are you going to
have any?
T. D. Pettway: There one or two stalks down in these, but it's
dried up, just about.
KTWI I wanted to get some pictures of the syrup mill.
Do you think there's going to be enough to make
any syrup with?
T. D. Pettway: I believe somebody goin make some, cause I saw
Roger cuttin down some millet Saturday, so some­time
he goin make it, I'm pretty sure. But I
don't know when.
KTWI Well, what about hogs? You got any you going to
kill this winter?
T. D. Pettway: I don't know. I have one hog that I was goin
kill. And just last night, this lady's boar
hog, he got out, broke into there and broke my
female hog out. And I imagine what probably
happened, so I probably won't get to kill my
hog. My hog was a virgin, and I meant to keep
her that way. I expect I'm goin to have some
pigs, some unwanted pigs. Because he broke her
out.
KTW, Tinnie Dell, do you remember killing pigs when
you were little?
T. D. Pettway: Oh, yes. I remember when my father used to
kill em, hang em all up and wash em out, scrape
all the hair off em. I'll never forget that,
cause my uncle was good to grab us up and sit
us on a skinned hog.
KTW: Never did stuff you down inside of one, did he?
T. D. Pettway: No'rn. But he skin em and wash em off, and before
you know one thing, he got you sittin on top of
KTW.
a skint hog, you know. I had the devilish uncle
you ever seen in all your life. Monroe.
Oh, is that the one?
T. D. Pettway: That's the one. Right. He always did things
like that. Yeah, we did that all our lives.
KTW,
From the time I can remember till I was big
enough to help until I left. Every year we still
kill hogs. One or two.
I want to ge~ Borne pictures of that, too.
Weather's got to get cold before you do that.
T. D. Pett~ay : Oh, yeah . Some people do i t before Christmas ,
some even ~ait till after Christmas . Gotta
get real cold.
KTW, Did you ever play with the bladder ?
T. D. Pett~ay : Oh, yes. That ~as the only thing we wanted .
KTW,
Take it and pump it up and let it fly. My
Mother, she got smart. She started painting it.
After ~e hung it up in the house, painted . We'd
blow it up with a cane, a fishing cane, stick
it in that hole to blow it up. And then some­body
tie it .
Now, I ' ve never Been that done, hung up in the
house .
T. D. Pettway: Yeah, we keep on doing it, and it keep stretching
bigger and bigger, and you blow em as tight as
you can get em, and then tie it . Cut all the
excess meat off and dry it, and then she paint
it .
KTW, They used to play football with those things, the
bladders .
T. D. Pettway: Well, we never did that. See, I didn 't know
anything about football .
KTW: They were tough, weren't they?
T. D. Pettway: They were. If you try to tear em up, you wouldn't.
KTW,
I always hated that hog killing time worse than
anything i n the world. In the first pl ace, it
made me sick to my stomach. I never could stand
it, and then the smell of thoBe cracklins cookin
was another thing that made me sick . I coul dn ' t
stand it . I could not stand that greasy cracklin
smell.
Did your Father shoot the hog or did he hit him
in the head?
T. D. Pettway: Sometimes he used to hit him. Depend on how big
he is. Most of the time, my Father ' s shoot the
hog . But on the second Sunday, our big church
day , they used to put up a pig, and they wasn't
a big hog; and they'd take a hammer and hit him
in the head , rather than shoot him . But it
looked l ike murder to hit him in the head, but
sometime they did hit em in the head. And the
brains, my Father loved hog brains .
KTW, We were talking about that big second Sunday at
the church. They don't do that any more , do they?
T. D. Pettway: You mean , like we'd cook. Oh, yes. We cook .
Right . Maybe now we cook more than we used to.
KTW : Got mor e now, haven't you?
T. D. Pettway: Right. Everybody. The church cook a8 a group,
9S a whole. And then people cook at home and
bring there. We really cook . They usually serve
it after church. And there's always plenty of
9
T. D. Pettway: food there . And Sunday, after baptizing. Any
time, l ike after we have anniversaries, the
church is invited. And we al ways have dinner .
Usually , if they invite a church, we would serve,
and we would have people coming from Mobile or
someplace , and they want to eat right sway. So
we would serve them and then go into our program ;
and when they are finished, they are ready to
KTW,
go home.
Well , did they get the air conditioning in the
church?
T. D. Pettway: Oh , yes . It was cold , I'm telling you. One of
the ladies said ehe wes so cool, it was just
like a bowl of ice cream. And it was too cold
for everybody that first Sunday. They had it in
the seventies and we was so used to it gettlng
8 hundred , that that seventy was absolutely cold.
KTW, I1t. was 120 tha t baptizing day I I don ' t think I've
ever been any hotter sitting down . But it was
8 beautiful service.
T. D. Pettway : Oh, yes. I always love that baptizing picture.
KTW,
I wasn ' t at the River Jordan , you know , but it
bring memories to mind and makes you think that
must have been, what it looked like .
(End Side 1, Begin Side 2)
Tinnie Dell, had all those who were baptized
had visions?
T. D. Pettway: Yes, they all had visions, I reckon. They said
they had . And they got up and told em . That's
the only way they can join. Well , I don't know.
If someone just went in there and 88Y, ItI want
to join the church" , they wouldn It turn em down,
no. But, traditionally, you have 8 vision if
you join the church, everywhere in this ares .
That is the tradition of this ares . You pray to
get religion and you come back and you tell it.
But now, if you walked in there and say , "I want
to join the church ", you ' ll join and you ' l l
be just as much a member as anybody else . I
think we are learning now . Traditionally , if
you didn ' t have viSions, you didn ' t have
religion . What we called religion, you wasn ' t
a Christian. But now , I think, peoples are
becoming much more educated . I guess I can say
that. They are learning that you don ' t • •• • •
I myself , I don ' t think it takes all that . You
know , just reading the Bible , the r e are some
indications that peopl e just turn, they just
say I'm gain do this way and I'm goin be a
Christian, and people down here are even learning
to not judge people so much. But at first, you
were judged according to the vision you saw.
And you came up there with a little short vision,
well, in the minds of the people you just done
doomed yourself to you know where , because you
didn't tell nothin . But I think lot of people
changin their view on that now.
KTW: Well, you bad a vision wben you joined the church?
10
T. D. Pettway: Yeah, I bad to or I never would have gotten in
there. I stayed out there just about three
months before I joined the church . I couldn ' t
believe nothin .
KTW, How old were you, Tinnie Dell? In your early
teens?
T. D. Pettway: No , I had graduated from high school and all.
That ' s right . I was about nineteen , I guess.
KTW: But you were not ready to believe right then,
were you?
T. D. Pettway : No , cause, really , to tell you the truth, I hadn't
seen nothin to believe in . And I guess • • • l don't
know • • • ! don ' t know what it was about me . The
whole thing waB , like my family, they say you
KTW:
got to give up ever ything; gatta forget about
eve r ything . And in my family ther e was so much
always to think about , I j ust couldn ' t put down
all that stuff. I kept my mind on first one thing
and then another . That what took me BO long .
I couldn ' t stop thinking about my people, or
what ' s going on around me, and, 80, finally, I
did .
After I see I wasn't goin to see no kind of vision ,
so finally I had to , you know, do like everybody
else . I got tired out there, being quiet by
myself . Cause when you're doing it, you don't
mix with the people . You don ' t come out. It ' s
just you and God , or you and the devil, or whoever
it is that ' s out there , and you come in and you
get your food , and you go back to yourself, and
you try to lay down all the things of the world .
You fill your mind with every thin except what you
tryin to do, and that is to get yourself in
con t act with God . That exactly what you tryin
to do. And then you gatta do that and you ' ll know
it by the things that you ask Him to show you,
and you see them. That ' s the only way you know
it has happened . But it ' s not easy to do . But
it can be done .
Well, then, there's no doubt in your mind when
you ' ve had one of these visions, is it?
T. D. Pettway: No . Doubt come around , but you know you've had
a vision, and then you stop your mind and say
maybe you dream it. Anyway, that what you see .
And then, you know, I think the most convincing
part about the whole thing is when you can feel
God's force or power, which we call the Holy
Spirit . And this is when you can't control
yourself , when the tears come ••••• and you know,
like they say, your feet get light , and big as
I was, I felt like my feet re ally got light .
I felt like r unning . And yet , now , this only
happens for a while. This doesn' t stay with you
for long. And then as soon as it goes , doubts
start coming baCk in , and you say , Lord , you ain' t
got nothin , you j ust been tellin a tale . And
then you stop , and what I did, I said , "How come
I felt like this . I never felt like that before . II
I know what I got now . But it ' s real har d . All
11
T. D. Pettway : down through your life, you' re goin to have
doubts. Certain things happen and you desire
things , and it come about, that make you realize
that there really is a God, and He really will
do things that you want and need.
KTW: Tinnie
first?
Dell, who did you tell your V1S10n to
To your Mother , or somebody?
T. D. Pettway: No, some people do make their kids ••••• they call
it catechizing em. They make them tell them
what ••••• they used to do that all the time. My
Mother didn ' t ask me nothin.
KTW: You just told her you had the vision?
T. D. Pettway: Right, I told her.
KTW: And sbe accepted that, didn't she?
T. D. Pettway: And then we had to tell it in the church. But
KTW:
I guess I h ad been there 80 long that I guess
she didn't care if I didn't have no vision, just
88 long as I ••••• No , I just said that . She was
expecting me to have one, go on or do something;
feel religion or let it all alone, one. I bad
been so long till it worried her .
And my sister, she prayed for a whole year. She
wasn't prayin, but she was seeking for a whole
year. She didn't go no place , she just stayed
home; she stayed -out in the back in her room,
locked up to herself. Wasn 't doing a thing but
sittin there. I know she couldn't have been
prayin; no God could listen to her that long.
And at this time, you don't look pretty. You
don't try to look pretty. You can be clean and
take a bathj like that, but nothin else.
Don't dress up. But was your vision anything like
your sister's vision?
T. D. Pettway: No, I don't think so. I wasn't at church when
my sister told her vision. I don't think I was
down here then. Matter of fact, I wasn't at
church when any of them told their vision. I
must have left •••• No, I didn't hear any of them
tell theirs. Some of them got religion before
I did, some of em was after I did. I didn 't
go to church to hear none of em . I don't know
how I missed it. I remember bein at the baptizing,
but I don't •••• I wasn't at the church when they
told their vision. I remember my Mother talkin
about it. But the whole thing of it is you
ask God one thing and He 'll show you things.
Never all the same way. Just all different ways.
You'll know what it is, and o~her people'll
know, but you ain't goin ever see the same thing
somebody else does. I guess He got as many
visions as He is faces.
KTW: Was yours dealing with animals in any way?
T. D. Pettway: No . We
things.
have , you know, like everybody they got
I'm not sure I know the name of it.
12
T. D. Pettway: I guess the name of, to give you an idea,
everybody ask God t o let them see themselves
KTW:
die and rise. That t he reason it t ook me so
long. I didn't know the meaning of dying
and rising. And I yet not sure I know the
reason of it. And t he most times that would
come in the form of some animal or some person
that you actually dream that they die. And you
are ready to funeralize em and you funeralize
em, snd people cryin over em, and the next thing
you know, they up and around. Some people see
chickens, snakes, whatever.
Mules. I heard somebody tell about a mule.
T. D. Pettway: Right. Lot of times, you don't have to ask for
a vision. If you just pray , you're gonna see
something. There will come a vision. But, then,
lot of people like to ask. I guess that's
more proof than just dreamin some thin.
KTW: Tinnie Dell, back to that hog killing. Margaret
used an expression with me, and I'm not sure what
it means. She said they made toms-toms. What
is that?
T. D. Pettway: Oh, well, I don't know really what the name is
KTW:
for that piece of meat. But it was just when you
kill a hog, and like the fat back part, that is
that part; they just take and they cut just the
skin off and they leave the fat there; and they
take that skin and they just cut them blocks just
about the size like that; about a four by four,
or a two by four, or something like that. And
they just put a whole lot of red pepper on there.
Season it with salt and a whole lot of red pepper.
Not black pepper. Then they put it into the
hog's chitlins, and they hang it up in the smoke­house
and let it dry, cure; and then it took it
and cook greens with it. It really make it good.
It's the best piece of skin you ever tasted.
Well, I reckon it did, but it'll burn you up,
won't it?
T. D. Pettway: Kinds like Italian stuff.
KTW: I don't know why I never have heard of that. Is
tom- tom right?
T. D. Pettway: Well, I call it tom thumb. So I don't know what
it is. That'w what I call it, tom thumb. I
don't really know what it is. I never really
stopped to find out what the real name is. That's
just what they call it, and that's all I call it.
KTW: You got any hanging up in your smokehouse?
T. D. Pettway: No. We didn't make any. Usually my Mother make
it because she like to keep em; because if she
cook peas she put em on there. She has to cook
them first, because it takes a while for them to
cook.
KTW: Kind of hard?
13
T. D. Pettway: Right . They have to cook a while , and then when
they start to get done, then she can put her peas
in there so they won ' t cook up .
KTW: Reckon anybody fs got any? I got to have some
greens cooked with them .
T. D. Pettway: I don ' t bel ieve nobody down here got none. I
doubt it now. I doubt if anybody got any . They
use, not the red pepper from the store , but the
red pepper out of the ga r den. All them pieces
of pepper is in ther e . Hot? My goodness! But
once you cook em in your peas and greens, that
kinde weaken that pepper . But the meat , I l ike
it .
KTW: Talking to a man in Auburn last week , asking
about Martha Jane Pettway . Julian Brown .
T. D. Pettway: Julian Brown . I heard of him .
KTW: He was the District Supervisor for all these
houses. He was asking about people . He was
asking about Little Pettway and his wife . I
told him his wife was still living .
T. D. Pettway : You ' d be surpr ised how many people know of him
(Little Pettway).
KTW:
T. D. Pettway :
Well, he knew him well . He said he used to
come down here with some plan , take Little Pett­way
off and talk to him about it ; that if Little
didn 't think it was a good idea, he ' d discard
it, cause it wasn ' t going over down here . Said
anything that happened here , Little had to say
it was all right .
That was it .
this area at
He did . He was the speaker
that time .
for
KTW: Talked about his native intelligence . If he
had been highly educated, there ' s no telling
what he could have done . Just immediately would
catch on to anything that was expl ained. He said
he ca r ed about these folks down here he lived
with.
T. D. Pettway : That was him , now.
KTW: You don ' t r emember him , do you?
T. D. Pettway ; Yeah , sur e I do . He was the secr etary •••• the
Sunday School superintendent when he was here ,
from the time I can remember him , and then he
became a Deacon later on . Yes , I remember him
well , I t wasn ' t too long ago he died . He didn ' t
die too long ago .
KTW : Was he a small man?
T. D. Pettway : He was small , but tall .
KTW: I think I have a picture of him , made wit h the
deacons of the church .
14
T. D. Pettway: Ri ght . You probably have . But he was a real
tall man.
KTW: And he lived to a pretty good old age, then,
didn I the?
T. D. Pettway : Yeah . He must have been in his middle seventies .
His wife is hanging on around here . She done
hit eighty something now.
KTW: And enjoying life.
T. D. Pettway: I 'm telling you. She sure is . Running off the
porch . Every time you go there , she come runnin
off the porch . I can ' t even run off no porch .
KTW: If they don ' t put some railings on some of these
porches , I 'm going to falloff some of these
porches . Is there a house down here that I s got
a railing?
T. D. Pettway : I doubt it.
(There is a background voice , telling of someone
who has railings at her bouse . Words are not
clear enough to understand.)
T. D. Pettway : Yeah , but they were made special because she was
crippled like. Otherwise ••••• she had ar thritis.
Otherwise , nobody use railings . They don ' t need
em. They so accustomed to not havin em till ••••
little kids and all . The little ones come to the
edge of the porch and bump right down there ,
KTW:
T. D. Pettway :
KTW:
and come bump, bump , bump down off there . I know
I go to pick those little kids up and they come
right down together. They so dirty behind , you
got to pick em up and they need changing .
Yes , but it bothers me to see some of the old
ones coming down those steps . I 'm so scared
they 're going to fall, but they never have , have
they?
No , they
she come
fall off
don ' t fall. I tell you, Miss Martha Jane ,
running down . I say , "Lady, you gain
those stepsll . But she never does .
And the steps are so worn and uneven .
T. D. Pettway : That ' s r i ght . And some of them are so narrow ,
you know .
KTW: My big feet don ' t fit on them .
T. D. Pettway: Well , I have to go up there walk in crossways . But
if they put side rail s up there , I doubt if they
would use em . Because they just not accustomed
to side rails . Things just wasn ' t made that
convenient for us . We not used to all that con­venience
. And because of that, probably we
don ' t even need it .
KTW: Got better balance , haven ' t you?
T. D. Pettway: A lot of times , you know, it does help you.
15
KTW: You do get kind of spoiled s ometime, don ' t you?
T. D. Pettway : That ' s t r ue. By having everything at your fin ger­tips
and everything . People down here haven ' t
known that glor y .
KTW: They 're better off right now, I guess, than
they ' ve ever been .
T. D. Pettway : I know they a r e . To tell you the t r uth , people
waste up down her e mor e now than they used to
have . Even t her e ar e stil l b i g pr obl ems with
un empl oyment down here . As a whole , I mean , the
peopl e a r e better off than they ' ve ever been .
Mor e peopl e a r e going to school ; and more people
ar e getting jobs . Mor e people are going to trade
school, and more par ents even are gettin out
KTW:
and gettin jobs. That makes it better .
Seeing a l ittle bit of t he outside world , too ,
ar en ' t they?
T. D. Pettway : That ' s right .
(End Side 2 , Tape 1)